Outside In
by Caelta
Summary: On the outside, Magnus's relationship to Tesla may seem more pragmatic than romantic. Her team knows better.
1. Will

Wow, two uploads in two days? Go me. Except, I have this lingering suspicion that my other most recent piece didn't show up in the feed. Maybe it's just me and I'm utterly blind, but for some reason I don't see it. Could I therefore trouble you brave souls out there to direct your attention, at your leisure, to a story of mine titled Echoes? Self-promotion never hurt anyone, right? Right?

Anyway, this one is fairly self-explanatory and set pre-4x13. I thought it would be cute to give an outside perspective to Nikola and Helen's crazy relationship, so, here you are. It'll be in three parts-each for a different perspective. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think. You guys are awesome, and I can't thank you enough.

Oh, and on a side-note, if anyone out there in the wide world feels that they can make a decent MMV and the like, I'd be delighted if you'd consider using the song Genius by Duncan Sheik for a Teslen vid. (Even if you can't, or if you don't have a clue what any of this means and I'm now speaking Greek to you, you can still check out the song. It fits, in my opinion.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Sanctuary.

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_1. Will_

Try as he might, it was a difficult endeavor to avoid the prospect of clocks when he had devoted himself to routinely checking his phone for signs of contact from Abby. It was on the verge of habit at this point, as any normal person including his girlfriend would have gone to bed well before the little numbers on the screen of his phone transformed themselves to denote that it was 3:00 a.m.

3:00 a.m. …and what he wouldn't give for a decent cup of coffee. Unfortunately, such a thing did not exist within the confines of a Sanctuary run by the world's oldest Brit. She could spend thousands in all sorts of currencies tracking down obscure items by the ton for the needs of abnormal residents, but when it came to coffee her staff was left to suffer.

Praying that tonight was not the night that the sharp-toothed, flesh-eating, invisible teleportation beast (he was sure he'd seen something following that description on file somewhere, and if not it was only a matter of time) decided to come knocking, Will skulked out from his office in the hopes of a fruitful foray into the kitchen. Although it was unlikely he would find Kate's stash of instant coffee she so relentlessly held over his head, he could at least console himself with a cold soda—maybe a Mountain Dew, if Henry hadn't gone through the entire pack yet.

He pitched a hand through his ragged hair, mussing it lengthwise as he surveyed the contents of the walk-in. What he saw was scanty at best, and too late he remembered that tomorrow was restocking day.

As he pushed past a badly-wrapped package of leftover takeout, he made a mental note of a few items to add to the list that Biggie would take grocery shopping. Edible flavors of jello, for instance.

Out of the left side of his peripheral vision, something flickered.

On instinct, he stilled, and without making a move, he waited. Although it was likely nothing—a dangerous combo of a graveyard shift and lack of caffeine—he'd been at his job long enough to know that "nothing" could quickly turn into sharp-toothed, flesh-eating, invisible teleportation beast.

The light in the pantry was on. …how had he not noticed that, before?

Slowly, without letting on that he suspected anything in case whoever—or _whatever_, his brain cheerily warned him—wasn't the friendly type, Will shut the door to the walk-in and sidled his way to the stove-top, where he tentatively reached out a hand to grasp the firm handle to a wide-brimmed skillet hanging on the wall.

With baited breath, he held his weapon of choice lofted over his head, poised for skull-smashing action when the door to the pantry began to crawl its way open.

On Sanctuary turf, "nothing" was rarely the imagination. A nosebleed could mean brain parasites, a missing person could mean the next vampire outbreak, and a simple sore throat could turn out to mean he was transforming into an overgrown lizard creature. In this case, "nothing" was about to get the snot smacked out of it.

Well, until it sauntered out of the pantry with a wide grin of satisfaction, waved a box of spiced tea under his nose, and brushed past him with the cavalier attitude of the undaunted.

"Ah, Wilhelm. Good thing you're here. I couldn't find the hairy butler, or else I wouldn't bother being down here in this filth-trap myself." Without glancing his way, Tesla proceeded to dump a kettle into Will's free hand and usher him towards the sink. "Water. Fetch."

He could only gape unintelligibly, skillet still dangling limply in the air.

"Planning on singlehandedly wiping out the last of the vampiris race with a saucepan, are we? Go on. Fetch."

Momentum returning, he had sense enough to be irritated by the vampire's saucy comment. With a clang, he slung the skillet back onto the counter and begrudgingly shoved the kettle under the running faucet. While he waited and Tesla busied himself at the other end of the kitchen, Will pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed shut his eyes, sincerely hoping that he'd fallen asleep on his desk and that this was a dream.

"Tesla," he sighed explosively. "I…it worked in _Tangled_."

"Well, it does seem to have a sense of shrewish housewife written over it, doesn't it? Fitting for you, I think. Although, if I was a boring, unenhanced homosapien such as yourself, I would have gone for whipping up a bit of hot oil first, just in case my plain and puny DNA ensured that I threw a punch like a pixie."

If he hadn't seen Tesla in action, he would have diagnosed him with a case of narcissistic personality disorder on the spot. As it was, his egomaniac remarks were about as much as he could stand.

"Listen," he said dismissively, shaking his head in affirmation of a lost cause as he handed over the kettle, "just…_why_ are you here?"

"My, it seems I've been the butt of a merry joke. They told me you were like Watson. In case you missed the memo, Huggybear, I'm making a pot of tea."

He groaned, rethinking his decision to hunt for soda in the kitchen. "Does Magnus know you're here?"

"Although I admit I do have what it takes to break through what Heinrich likes to call security protocols, I must ask you what use is it to me to drop in unannounced on the most well-equipped, influential, and world-renown woman in this half of the globe? She's _your_ boss, kiddo, and you'd best know now that making her angry—it doesn't go down well."

Although Will seriously doubted he had any such capability to make Magnus angry enough to even scrape the surface of how livid a state Tesla could put her in, he dutifully ignored the scientist before him with what he liked to think was a growing tolerance.

"Okay, so she knows you're here."

"Bravo, William! Well done indeed. Now, what would your deductive reasoning make if I told you that the great vampiris race thirsts for something—" here, a pointed glance, "a little _thicker_ than tea?"

"Alright, you're making her the tea, I get it."

"Correct again."

"Yeah, uh…right. So, if you don't mind, I'm still on the clock, and—" With a mind to leave, Will started shuffling towards the door.

"Oh, no, no, don't let me get in your way," Tesla waved him off. "Go, read and sign your little heart out."

"…right." He backed his way out of the door as if retreating from a dangerous predator, which, in all honesty, was a perfect description of the way in which Tesla had always struck him. On his way out, however, the behavior analyst in him kicked in enough to zero in on the way the vampire was handling himself. In the short glimpse he slipped before he swept himself back down the hallway, he made note of the fact that Tesla took peculiarly great care in preparing something that he himself was not all that fond of.

A precise devotion to the amount of sugar, down to each granule.

Three stirs clockwise, three counterclockwise, then a napkin to wipe the lingering moisture from the spoon.

A carefully placed garnish, crisp mint leaves to drift at the amber liquid's surface.

A finger to his lips in thought, and then a dash to the pantry and back with shortbread, placed delicately at the lip of the saucer.

Loath as he was to admit it, Will couldn't deny that Dr. Vlad was a man taken in heart. Perhaps a good bit of OCD, too. Of course, he made his enamorment difficult to believe through a rather ingenious method of reverse psychology—proclamations of the most ostentatious manner and enough inopportune flirtation to give Kate a run for her money—but in the end, as much as he wanted to believe it wasn't all for show, it took a lot more than a couple calculated remarks and carefully placed gestures to fool a trained psychiatrist.

Plus, he had to give the guy props for having consistency. From what he heard, Tesla had been at it for over a century.

He tried to imagine a life like that—having to chase after Abbey for years on end, never with any true confirmation that he was even getting anywhere. It scared him to think that he didn't know whether or not he could do it. Would he have given up by now, 100-some years later, if it was _his_ heart on the line?

His own self-doubt lent him a certain respect for the man who had made a career of making himself despicable, because he honestly didn't have an answer for the question of what he might have done. Would he be willing to give up such a large part of himself, to dedicate himself body and mind for an eternity, to a woman he'd seen marry another man, a woman who had cried on every shoulder but his own?

He knew, then, why Tesla kept his distance—why he disappeared every so often.

Hell, if he'd had that sort of thing weighing him down, he'd probably spend every waking moment trying to find a way beyond reason to get himself impossibly drunk, too.

So much for a lack of caffeine.

And so much for _I recognize the emotion for what it is—an irrational, self-destructive impulse which is disguised as joy_, because honestly, it was no wonder which aspect of his emotion had been talking in that moment.


	2. Kate

I'm on a buttery, French roll here. Thanks so much to all you lovely people who have reviewed, but also to those of you who take the time to favorite or alert. You make me smile. :) And forgive me for not including Big Guy's perspective. It just seems to me, since he already has so much insight into Helen and her life, and since we all know how verbose he is, that he'd really only have to say "Yep." to get his point across. At any rate, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Sanctuary.

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_2. Kate_

If there was a limit to how irrefutably gross one could feel, Kate was sure she'd found it. She'd just spent the better part of a week crawling around on her hands and knees through the most unpleasant pit in the earth imaginable trying to track down some elusive abnormal, the scientific name for which she'd forgotten the very second it left Magnus's lips, and in the end she'd come up just as empty-handed as she'd gone down.

Man, there was nothing she wanted more than a hot shower. Except maybe a hot cheeseburger.

Her stomach growled demandingly at the thought of real food. Her mind quickly caught up with it when she remembered with devilish glee that today was Monday, which meant that yesterday had been restocking day. Oh, sweet, sweet restocking day. Walking into the Sanctuary kitchen pantry after restocking day was a lot like walking into the grocery section of a Costco.

One pit stop and two microwave burritos later, she was heading up the stairs and around the corner to the residential corridor with every intention of scrubbing her skin off. Because she was too busy shoving as much of what she considered, in her very ecumenical opinion, to be delight of the Mexican gods into her mouth as possible, she didn't hear the feeble knock that echoed halfheartedly down the hall.

Although being quiet wasn't usually her area of expertise—she was more of the type to shoot first and ask questions later—she did give her best shot at tiptoeing down the unlit passage in consideration of the fact that it was the middle of the night and most everyone on this stretch was human.

There was no warning.

The gig was up when her foot connected with something solid in the middle of the floor, sending her sprawling onto her aching palms and knees. She might have shrieked, had her mouth not been so full of burrito.

But _seriously?_ Come _on_. Who the _hell_ left his stupid crap in the middle of the Goddamn—

"Mind watching your feet, Bridget?"

…it talked. In fact, it complained. Which, oddly enough, reminded her very much of—

"Vlad! _You?_ Holy tits, when did you get here?" It was dark, but she could just make out his form propped up against the doorway at his back—Magnus's door—with his legs sprawled straight out into the hall.

"Is _anyone_ here ever happy to see me?"

"Yeah, like you ever show up for a happy visit. You know she's not letting you through that door, right?"

"Au contraire. You see, I was on the other side of that door no more than three hours and forty seven minutes ago." His look was pointed and distasteful, but by the way he waggled his eyebrows she decided she didn't want any part in knowing what had been going on three hours and forty seven minutes prior.

"You've been sitting out here for…? " Almost four hours. As a sworn enemy of boredom, she sympathized. "Geez, you're as stubborn as she is. So, she kicked you out into the hall, huh?"

"No, sitting on the floor in dark hallways in front of locked doors just really tickles my fancy. She begged and pleaded for me to stay, but I couldn't resist."

Something in the way he said it tugged at her small reserve of pity for others, probably because he reminded her a little of herself. That, and she couldn't deny that it was, in a weird way, cute. Hoping she wouldn't regret it, she slid down next to him onto the floor. "Listen, uh…maybe I could help you out."

He sniffed. "You reek."

"Yeah, tell me about it. Balinese caves. Don't ask. But hey, maybe you should tell me what happened."

"Mind your own beeswax, Miss Freelander."

"Oh, you don't wanna go there—I am the _queen_ of minding other people's business. Consider yourself shit up the creek, Sparky."

She could tell he was struggling not to smirk at her, but he still shook his head. "No. Absolutely not. I do not accept help from stinky children."

"Oh, so…that time we saved you from being eaten by those giant termites, or when we helped you get those trust-fund vampire kids out of your hair…?"

"Excuse me, who was the fall-guy in those situations?"

With a sigh, she crossed her arms. The guy was a real piece of work, and he knew it. Why, _why_ couldn't Magnus just involve herself with guys that were a little less…psychotic? "Listen, all I'm saying is…I'm on your side. I'm rooting for you, man. We could use a little pizzazz around here, and I'm sure we could all breathe easier if the Doc's getting a little action."

From the other end of the door came a rather suspicious-sounding cough, and Tesla waved a finger at her in delight.

"See, I knew there was a reason I liked you best."

"So…? What happened?" Each second he didn't tell her only fueled her curiosity. All thoughts of soap and showers wiped clean from her mind, she nibbled expectantly at her second burrito.

"If you must know, she only made me leave because she couldn't restrain herself around me. If I were to have stayed a moment longer…"

"Bull."

"My version's better," he grumbled.

Rolling her eyes, she swallowed hard and leaned back, settling down for a long night. She didn't really mind as much as she let on. Dangerous and obnoxious as the man was, he was fun, and she liked that side of him that could take her team for a ride. Fun was good.

"Okay, so what _really_ happened?" She nudged him in the ribs, offering a bite. "Burrito?"

His lip curled. "Oh, no, no, no—I don't do dog-food. As for the Princess of Propriety, she told me she was tired and asked me to leave."

"That's…it?"

"I told you my version was better." He stuck a lip out and pouted with a vengeance.

Eyeing him in keen skepticism, she shrugged and bit into the last of her snack. There had to be more to the story. He had to have done something—_said_ something—that would cause Magnus to clam up and toss his ass out, because as far as Kate was concerned the woman never slept.

"So why are you still out here?" she asked.

"Clearly waiting for a bumbling child like you to come along and make all my problems go away. Where have you been all my life?"

She groaned, and turned to the door. "Hey, Doc, you gotta let this guy in. Please, just open up, he's driving me _insane_."

There was a shuffle, and then a voice. The door didn't budge. "Sorry to disappoint, but I feel the same way. He's all yours, Kate."

Suddenly, she didn't need to know what he'd said in order for it all to make sense. Just hearing him talk, she decided, was enough. It would, in fact, be enough for anyone.

The thud of her forehead against her boss's door made her realize just how much noise they'd been making. She stood. "Oh, man. You must've really pissed her off, this time. But hey, I bet I know what'll cheer you up."

He looked away disinterestedly, but she could tell that his ears were perked.

"But you'll have to come with me, first."

For a good five minutes, he steadfastly refused. For the next five, she resolutely considered giving up and taking that shower. But when she finally dragged herself down to the little cubby in the basement to prop up her feet and pull out an old movie, he was right there behind her, skipping at her heels. With no reasonable clue as to how she'd done it, she considered herself lucky.

Or, as the situation dictated, unlucky. The man was an arrogant son of a bitch, but she couldn't deny that the Sanctuary was a little lacking when he wasn't around to bother them into the ground.

She never did learn what he'd done to get on Magnus's bad side, but she did learn something of a little greater importance; Tesla, whether he liked to admit it or not, was tied by the heartstrings to Helen Magnus.


	3. Henry

Hi there! Thank you all for continuing on to the end of this sort-of drabble. Before you read this I ought to tell you that I absolutely adore the Henry/Nikola dynamic, considering Henry is one of the only other people besides Helen that Tesla deems worthy of regular interaction, but I simply couldn't resist. And for those of you that double as Stargate fans, there's a reference that might amuse you. Much love!

Disclaimer: I don't own.

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_3. Henry_

Something wasn't right. Henry could feel it in the creakings of the old foundation over his head and in the swirling of the air, like an invisible hand prodding at his gut-sense. He didn't yet know what it was, exactly—just that the little hairs on the back of his neck had been in a perpetual state of elevation for two days now, like the same feeling his wolf-instinct ground into his stomach every time there was a storm.

His evidences would never hold water in a court setting, but something was off and he knew it.

Kate had returned from her latest expedition to…_somewhere_, just last night, and it wasn't like her not to drop by either for bragging rights or a place to sulk. He told himself he was just being childish and paranoid, but…

She _always_ hung out in his lab after around one, usually accompanied by food and an energy drink. It had become sort of a routine for them, after that one night that she had slipped in through the door, into his lab and less admittedly into his heart, with the excuse of being cold.

Henry's lab was hot. It was rarely anything below 83, even when he cracked a window, and he barely noticed it anymore. There was a vast array of whirring and humming mechanical instruments that were highly suspect, arranged in a way that looked a lot more like a junkyard or a yard-sale than a workplace.

It wasn't that he really cared, except…dammit, he _missed_ her. He missed the smacking of her gum, the stale pizza-smell, the blueprints used as napkins, and the way she was always messing with, and more often breaking, his experiments. He felt a little worried and a little betrayed, too.

If that was all, he might have just told himself to man up and grow a pair. But there were other things—like how the crescent wrench that had been perched at the corner next to his monitor for over a month had somehow found its way across the room or how he was suddenly and mysteriously missing a roll of copper wiring.

Even weirder was how the Doc had been behaving. She'd approached him just the other day with a serious request for him to look at a kink in the server processing and to update the generator system, once he got the chance, but when he'd reciprocated only a couple hours later and made a cheerful inquiry as to what she needed looked at, she'd only told him nevermind—it was no longer an issue.

Plus, Will had barely come out of his room for the past couple of days except for when it was strictly necessary. The only one unaffected seemed to be the Big Guy, who only grunted unhelpfully at his assertions that something was going on.

Henry felt a lot like he was on the outside of the loop of a very important inside joke, and he didn't like it. It left a bad taste in his mouth.

He was on the verge of hunting down someone—_anyone_ who could tell him what the hell was going on or at the very least give him a clue, but then there was Kate. He didn't known when she had come in—maybe when he'd been pounding a fist to his temple and groaning—and he felt a small amount of shame that she'd seen him, not quite meeting her eye.

"Uh, hi," he said in weak greeting.

She didn't or chose not to notice his dilemma, too busy hopping up onto the counter, scattering pages of half-sketched notes. Looking pleased with herself, she shoved a slice of pizza into his hand and grinned.

"Have _I_ got news for _you_."

"Good news?" he hoped. He was a little too relieved to see her, grease stains and all. The cheese dripping down onto his hand burned.

"Oh—well—that's not the point. Can you see the security feed from here?" She knew very well that he could. And he didn't like where this was going.

"S-sure, but, uh—"

"Residential hall numero quatro. Feast your eyes, Hank, my friend."

It took him less than a second to pull up the feed and a little more to locate the indicated camera, blowing it up full screen for them to see—

"Dude—_whoa!_" He jerked back away from the monitor so fiercely that he tripped, sending his pizza and a few scraps flying before finally catching himself on the counter behind. Disbelievingly, he squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again with little change to the scenery.

Once. Twice. Nope, still there.

"Whoa," he said again, this time leaning forward in captivated horror. "_Whoa, whoa, whoa—this is not happening!_"

"You want to make popcorn?" asked Kate, still grinning.

On the monitor before them and five stories above them, Nikola Tesla was pinned to a wall under the duress of Helen Magnus. And _not only_ was he pinned to a wall, but he was severely lacking in the shirt department and was cupping her ass, which she didn't seem to mind.

Henry tried not to watch as they continued to make out, but he found his eyes glued to the screen.

"Uh—what—did-h-how…" He cleared his throat. "_Tesla's here?_"

"You couldn't tell?"

She had a point. Suddenly everything he'd thought was strange all came rolling together into a finished puzzle, and he felt very much like an idiot.

Of course it was Tesla—because why _else_ would Will have barricaded himself in his room?

Will…

"Oh, man."

He tore himself away from the scene and half-sprung, half-fell towards the intercom, punching it a little too heavily. "Hey, man, you there?"

_A beat. "Yeah?"_

"Awesome, you gotta see this, dude. Come down to my lab."

"_Uh…why? What is it?"_

"Aw, c'mon. You just gotta see this, trust me." He stepped towards Kate, but stopped himself and shuffled back. "Oh—oh, and take the stairs, man. Do _not_ take the elevator, okay?"

"_O—kay…"_ came the unsure response.

To make use of the elevator, one would undoubtedly have to cross paths with the currently enamored couple. Not that they'd take much notice, where they were headed.

By the time Will joined them, he had to squeeze behind where they stood shoulder to shoulder, leaning over the screen and chewing. At this point the couple had made it a few more feet down the hallway, gaining ground towards Magnus's door, and had lost a belt and a few buttons on the way.

The psychiatrist sputtered, choked, regained himself, and then snorted all over again when he looked back up. "Oh my _God_," he finally got out.

"Pizza?" offered Kate.

Doggedly, he shook his head. "Excuse me while I go wash my eyes out with acid."

His comment was ignored, much like the fact that he continued to stay and watch.

Kate asked the necessary question. "Does this thing have audio?"

"Nah, sorry." It was the truth, but Henry wasn't sure he would have informed them if it wasn't—hearing voices to go along with the images would make it, in his opinion, just a little _too_ real. "But, if you want, you can always just imagine what they're saying."

He was a little sorry he'd said it once Kate started dictating the lines of the couple on-screen out-loud, and a little relieved when Will interrupted her.

"You both _do_ realize," he said, gesturing between them, "that we're still going to have to look at her after this, right?" Without picturing her naked.

"And him," chimed Kate. It was entirely possible that she was enjoying this a little too much.

A lengthy sigh from the psychiatrist punctuated the beginning of a long silence, interrupted only by the wet sounds of chewing, in which they all watched Tesla pull back their boss's chemise. He trailed kisses from the dip of her chest to her pelvis, and then back up as she moved against him, arms easily encircling his torso to pull him yet closer.

Inevitably, Biggie was sucked into the affair, but the only thing he deemed worth saying on the matter was, curiously, "Hah. Took 'em long enough."

At the event's end, once Magnus and her vampiric companion finally toppled through her door and, presumably, to her bed, Henry couldn't decide between feeling ill or amused. He knew the guy'd had the hots for the Doc, but _this_—this was unexpected.

Just the way Tesla had held himself was a testament to something stronger than any of the company in the room wanted to mention. The way he'd kissed her, caressed her, held her—fixed her generator system—those weren't the actions of a man looking for a fling.

Henry knew because—well… He stole a glance at Kate, catching her eye, and she smirked at him like she knew what he was thinking. But she didn't.

"Right, show's over," he announced, flicking the screen back to his desktop, which, to his dismay, was still a half-naked picture of Samantha Carter. He quickly flipped to the internet, instead.

"So, uh…I think I'll just go—back to my room, now," said Will.

"Ten out of ten," said Kate.

"Nice background," said Biggie.

Henry decided he liked it better when he didn't know what was going on.


End file.
